


All Hallows Eve

by ChaosDragon (PlotWitch)



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotWitch/pseuds/ChaosDragon
Summary: Anita needs revenge, and Edward is just the person to help her get it.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and the character _Hannibal Lector_ are registered and licensed to Thomas Harrison and his publishing company. The idea of a memory palace though, is _not_.
> 
> I also realize that Anita probably doesn’t have my vocabulary and thus would never use some of the words I chose. Bear with me, I had no choice. Let’s pretend she’s smarter than she really is.  
> (For the record I copies this verbatim, and I am positive this was when I was first getting disenchanted with the series. Seriously disenchanted.)

It was one week till Halloween and business was picking up. It had been ever since Labor Day weekend, with people coming out of the woodwork and wanting this relative or that relative raised. Tonight I’d actually had a coven of witches with a court order for the dead leader to be raised in order to determine who the coven would be led by next.

It had been a disaster that no one would ever have believed when the zombie declared the coven to be defunct and closed since none of the witches had an iota of real power. The lawyers were astonished, the witches started crying, and I tried not to crack up.

It had taken almost an hour of reasoning, but someone finally was elected and I could put the zombie back and move on to my next raising, which I was almost half an hour late for. I was set back the whole night because of that one raising, and by the time I finished my seventh and final raising, I was ready to go home and go to bed.

I wasn’t even paying attention to anything but how tired I was as I headed for my jeep and started to think about sleep. I had a to do list three miles long and knew I’d have to be up earlier than usual to get it done before my scheduled meetings that began at four.

The only thing I saw was a shadow looming behind me—a dull blur in the reflection of the pale paint on my jeep. Nothing else, no details, no warning but that. Then there was a sharp, dull thud and an explosion of pain that ran from the top of my skull down my entire spine.

I went limp, falling to the ground and avoiding the second blow that dented the side door. It had bent in like the side of a soda can and I realized that a were I had pissed off finally decided to take it out. I tried to get up, tried to reach for the Browning, but my body was too heavy to move.

The sun had peeked across the horizon while this happened and I felt myself picked up and slung across a shoulder. It poked violently into my stomach and I thought about the bruise I was going to have if I lived through this. But then, it didn’t seem to really hurt.

I watched as I was thrown across the road, into oncoming traffic, and barely thought that maybe, just maybe, this time I wasn’t going to live through it. I never felt it when the car struck me, there was no pain, no impact. No nothing.

I simply watched, impassive, as my body flew into the windshield, smashing it. The safety glass shattered, making spider web patterns all across it. Then a hole followed, my head and chest going through it, half in and half out. Watched it.

_Watched it._

Oh, God. I was watching my own death.

I had been watching ever it since that first blow. I was dead. I had been dead before I was even slung across that shoulder, I think. I was dead when I hit the ground that very first time.

And I had watched it… I never even saw their face.

I stifled a sob, even though I wasn’t sure I could really cry. I was dead. Not only was I dead, but I was a ghost.

A horn blared and I heard screams as the driver slammed on the brakes. My body—oh God—jerked back from where it was stuck and lay sprawled across the hood of the car. People were standing around staring it me. There was blood running down my face and neck, from where the glass had cut me.

There was an odd depression at the top of my skull, blood and worse matting my hair to it. And I still heard screaming. No one else seemed to pay attention.

It was then that I realized that the screams were mine.


	2. 1

“You son of a bitch,” I muttered as I trudged through fog and shadow as thick as mud. I was fighting my way into Jean-Claude’s dreams and, I suppose, his mind. He was, to use a phrase, in deep mourning. As demonstrated by the quality of his dreams.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except I could hear him just fine. I could hear me too, a dream golem that he had made to ease his own pain and grief. But I was never like the woman he was picturing me as, if I could tell _anything_ from the way she spoke.

She was a simpering, utterly feminine, completely dependent thing. And she was comforting him in ways I never had. Or never would have if I had lived. Some things I would do for him. But not that.

I reached out with sure mental hands. At least dying had done one thing for me. Though I no longer had any control over my necromancy, I was sure enough in everything else. The necromancy came and went, but I couldn’t touch it anymore.

Probably because I was dead myself.

I shredded the dream from the outside in, wearing away at it until he was alone and the golem was gone. He looked around, a dazed sadness on his face, and I felt a little bad about looking down on his form of grief. Perhaps it made him feel better to have me need him. I sure as hell hadn’t when I was alive, so maybe I should let him have me that way in death.

After all, she wasn’t real and it didn’t hurt anyone. I think.

“Jean-Claude,” I said. My voice was soft and had a hollow echo to it. It creeped me out and made me think of all the ghost movies I had made fun of because they hadn’t seemed real enough. I was wrong, very wrong.

“Jean-Claude, you must avenge me.” Soft, hollow, demanding. Well, one out of three wasn’t bad.

He watched me silently, eyes burning blue. “Your dress was so much lovelier, _ma petite_ ,” he muttered. “You always do this, always must have it your way. Can I never have the pleasure of having you my way?”

He cursed in French and then stood and paced away from me. I could feel the dream substance start to change, a pressure of it growing firm and gaining body. It was directed at me and I held back tears as I let it change me. My body tingled for a moment and then shimmered softly with incandescent mist before it stopped.

When I looked down I was wearing something straight out of medieval times. It was a beautiful dress. The color was like freshly spilled blood and as I moved my gloved hands over it I could tell it was silk—all smooth and soft. It was gathered at the waist and emphasized my newly corseted figure leading up to a simple bodice that had a decorated panel of black on the front.

The panel was a flat black brocade with the embroidered design of roses and looking closer I could see thin silver threads running through the petals making them flash slightly. The sleeves, if that’s what they were, fell just off of the shoulder in an artfully arranged loop. It was edged in black with short fringe brushing my skin.

I twitched a hand over the skirt, rustling it against my legs. It was full and had a bustle that extended around from the back, showing more black fringe. The silk of it was embroidered with matching roses, this time in the red to match it, and more silver threads. It was beautiful.

He moved towards me, smiling. “See? Much better,” he murmured a he slid a hand around the back of my neck, fingers sliding through the hair that still curled down my back. “ _Si beau... Que je pourrais rester ici pour toujours où je vous ai toujours._.”

I didn’t understand what he said to me, but I understood the press of his lips to mine and the pain that suddenly ripped through me. I stumbled back, gasping for breath and tripping over the skirt. The dream suddenly faded as I tore my way out, forcing him back into wakefulness and reality.

Jean-Claude jerked upright in the giant bed we had shared often. I think ht would have been gasping for breath if he had needed to breathe. As it was there were tears rolling down his cheeks and his eyes were wild and full of pain.

I moved towards him from the corner where I stood. At least, I think I was standing. I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the ghost thing yet and I wasn’t sure what I was really doing. So I stepped towards him, hand out to touch him.

It passed through him. I should have been more prepared but it hit me again, like a sledgehammer, that I was dead. Someone had killed me and I hadn’t moved on. I began to scream.

No one heard me, and I bit it off with effort. Hysteria wouldn’t help.

Jean-Claude was rolled on his side sobbing. I had never seen him like this before, never seen him moved to tears much less uncontrolled. I watched him, trying to talk to him, to comfort him. But he couldn’t hear me. Maybe it was because I forced him from the dream, maybe it was because of his grief.

But he wouldn’t hear me.

I was startled to see Asher come in. he hurried to the bed and gathered Jean-Claude in his arms, giving the comfort he couldn’t take from me. I began to drift as my mind turned to Asher and his being awake. It must be much later than I had thought, and as quickly as I realized it I could feel the walls closing in on me.

I was underground, enclosed by the earth. Like a tomb. My mind raced as I was crushed by the sudden desire to be _above ground_. And then I was, just in time to watch the sun begin to set. Above ground, and alone.

There were six days to Halloween.


	3. 2

I spent the better part of the night thinking and waiting. When I realized that Jean-Claude would be closed to me as I was—an already proven fact— I thought that Richard would be the next logical person to go to. The only one I could think of.

And the second I thought of him I suddenly found myself where I expected him to be. His house.

But he wasn’t, there was no sign of him. It occurred to me that maybe he had pack business, or maybe he had gone to the Circus to talk to Jean-Claude. Either way, I was stuck waiting for him in the silence of his house. A fairly boring thing to contemplate since I had discovered that ghosts do _not_ get tired and definitely don’t sleep.

Being a ghost was pretty boring if you ignored the hunt for your killer. For a moment as I sat there I was reminded of a movie I had watched when I was much younger. _Beetlejuice_ it had been called, and the dead people in it had gotten a handbook. I bit my lip to keep from smiling or laughing as I thought about it.

Curiously, I sat up. “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” I said. I hadn’t really expected anything to happen. I wasn’t disappointed when nothing did.

I waited for what seemed like hours, letting my mind wander from thought to thought, none of them very cohesive as I tried to avoid real thoughts. Several times my mind drifted to the pard. I wondered if they were still living in the house I’d rented, or if they’d left it in the 48 hours since I’d died.

I could picture it, them sitting around in the living room, most of them nude or the next thing to it. Not one of them caring. Unexpectedly I was there, in their midst. They were doing exactly as I’d pictured them. Nathaniel was curled up next to Zane and Cherry, Gregory was stroking his long hair as he cried.

Stephen and Jason were there, too, going through various boxes scattered on the coffee table. Someone had ordered Chinese and I was reminded that I would never taste it again. Jason kept wiping his eyes and I tried to touch him out of habit. He shuddered as my hand passed through him.

“Someone turn the heat up,” he called as he gathered mostly empty take out cartons and took them to the kitchen. My heart sped up. Or what passed for it now. Whatever.

Jason was a latent. He could feel me. But he didn’t know I was there, what I was, and wouldn’t know to help me unless I could force him to see me. But I didn’t know how, and instead watched him as he put things away.

His back was to me as he stood at the sink, rinsing off plates. I could see his shoulders shake, and I wondered how my death was affecting everyone in my life. Before I could randomly start thinking of people—I had no desire to take rapid fire journeys to each of them, there was only so much grief I could take, even as a ghost—I turned my thoughts back to Richard.

As expected I found myself back at his house. Just in time to watch Jamil and Shang-Da dragging him in through the front door. He stank of beer and vodka and other liquors. I would have said prior to this that you couldn’t get a werewolf drunk, but since Richard was plastered… I guess he drank enough to kill a normal human. More than one, probably.

I waited until the other two wolves left before insinuating myself into his drunken dreams. Since he was three sheets to the wind it was frighteningly easy. Or maybe I was getting the hang of the dead thing. Not that I wanted to, of course.

Richard’s dreams were dark, but that was where the similarity to Jean-Claude’s ended. He had never quite gotten the hang of creating things in them. He preferred the real thing. So I found him and only him.

He was still drunk. Even in his dreams.

Or maybe that was just a carry over because his brain and his subconscious both knew how shit-faced he was. Whatever the reason, I didn’t care. I was hoping the alcohol would make him more receptive. More perceptive. And that I would be able to get my vengeance.

It was the only way I would move on.

I saw him there, sitting in a throne of sharp black rock. The office of his kingship, I suppose. He truly was Ulfric, finally, even like this. I was pleased and proud and I dropped to my knees before him, a sad smile plastered on my face.

“Hello, Richard.”

He looked at me, face blank, eyes dull. “’Nita?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s me. I need your help.”

“You’re dead,” he whispered. “I can’t help you now. I couldn’t ever help you.”

I wrapped my hands around his face, palms to his cheeks, forcing him to look at me. “Please, Richard? I’m not able to go, yet.”

His hands came up to my wrists and he pulled me towards him, kissing me. I could taste the alcohol on his breath and lips as he did, but I kissed him back. I thought if I weren’t so confrontational maybe it would work better.

“Love you, ‘Nita,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me.

His arms started to go through me and for a moment I thought that my ghostly state had bled into the dream, or that somehow we were back in the real world. Then I realized that he was the one fading. His mind receding as the alcohol finally took over.

There were tears on my cheeks as I returned to the real world and watched him sleeping where he lay on the couch. His face was a mask of sorrow, and I passed a hand through him, wondering if he would feel it and take comfort from it.

He didn’t even stir.

I watched him until he woke, well into the day. But as I continued watching him stumble around, cleaning up and taking care of himself, he never did or said one thing to make me think he remembered the dream. Or if he did, he was passing it off as a fuzzy drunken hallucination.

There were five days till Halloween.


	4. 3

There were still several hours until dark and I decided that maybe I was going about it the wrong way. Trying to contact people in dreams was all well and good, except for when they expected to see me in them. Then they could just rationalize me away as grief or being drunk.

So I sat down to make a list of all of the people I knew that I could contact. I was surprised when I finished. It had taken most of the night to do it, I hadn’t realized I had known so many people. And it had taken much longer than I expected because I had to remember the list without the help of writing it down.

I was really beginning to hate being dead.

Jean-Claude and Richard were out. I had tried and failed with them. They were too wrapped in their grief to listen and understand. But I couldn’t blame them for it; I would be as bad or worse if I had lost one of them.

The pard was out also. None of them were dominant or alpha enough to be able to do anything or force anyone to listen. If they even got the message.

The pack was definitely out. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I entered into anything with them. I was afraid that Raina might decide to come after me now that we were both in the afterlife. I wasn’t entirely sure I would win against her, so I chose not to push that particular button.

I weighed my options from various were’s to vampires to any-freaking-body. I even ruled Marianne out because she was so close to her pack’s lupanar. I knew Raina could travel that far.

Ronnie and Dolph and Zerbrowski were all ruled out. They were normal and unlikely to ever get anything from me now. Jameson was too stupid. I could try Manny, but for some reason I wasn’t sure he would do anything even if he heard me.

His wife might kill him if he went out avenging me at his age.

Which left… No one.

I wanted to cry. I knew I had unfinished business. I was the type of person who would need revenge on her killer, if I didn’t get it I would never move on. I would never be at peace, and I would probably make life a living hell for whoever I could get to pay attention to me.

There really was no one I could depend on to make this right for me, I thought. In that split second his eyes flashed inside my mind—cold as ice and piercing blue. Someone who had always been there for me, always watching my back.

A smile slid across my face. I couldn’t think of anyone better for the job. He, at least, would hunt the murderer until he got them, and then kill them with a song in his heart.

So I pictured him in my mind, pictured his house, willed myself there. It would be early, the sun was just rising in St. Louis, it was still dark in Santa Fe. You’d think he would be home.

Yeah. Right. That’s what I said.

It was just before dawn and Edward wasn’t home. Neither was anyone else. As I wandered around I noticed that the little homey touches I’d seen from Donna were no longer there. I wondered if he had done what I suggested at first and broke it off with her.

Better to see them hurt than dead. I really think it would hurt Edward for them to die.

I wandered into his bedroom, though I didn’t know it was his until I went in. it was almost empty. The only furniture was a bed and a desk. Granted, they were both surprisingly large. I don’t think anything else would have fit in there with them.

The bed was a medium colored wood with black wrought iron; the desk was a matching wood with black metal trim. I headed over to it, there were papers laying on top, pens, pencils, as well as a computer and a few picture frames.

I glanced at the pictures. There were the expected snaps of Donna and him, the kids, family photos I suppose. And all but one were dusty. The one that wasn’t was one I hadn’t expected—it was a picture of a woman I didn’t recognize. I looked closer and with a laugh I realized it was a frame that still held its filler picture.

That was odd, I thought. Then I noticed the back had been imperfectly closed and a corner of a real photograph was peeking out. I reached out automatically to pick it up and examine it, but my hand only went through. I ground my teeth in frustration as I pulled it back.

I wanted so badly to pick it up, to look at it. The tension in the air mounted swiftly going from nothing to screaming in the span of seconds. The picture fell forward, towards me. My hand was still half way through it when it did.

I gaped.

The glass had broken, the back had swung out. The picture was floating lazily down to the floor.

I held my breath as it drifted lazily, back and forth. Like a pendulum. Only this time, it was something that I really wanted to see. It was something he had hidden away. A secret. One of _Edward’s_ secrets. A shiver ran down my spine.

I smile twitched at the corner of my mouth as it settled and I leaned over, intent on seeing what it held. I think I would have gone insane if it had landed face down. But it didn’t, and I found myself staring at… myself.

There were four days to Halloween.


	5. 4

He was asleep when I finally got the nerve up to go back to his house. Asleep, alone, in the large, wide bed. I was surprised. He looked so much more dangerous than anyone I had ever seen, even sleeping. It was an illusion, I think. Because I knew who he was, what he was capable of.

He was much more dangerous than anyone I had ever met. Even the council. Because he was my friend.

As I prepared myself to slip into his dreams, it occurred to me that I was going somewhere I didn’t want to go. It was one thing to enter Jean-Claude’s and Richard’s dreams without asking first. But with Edward it was different.

It was pointless, I realized as I sank into the dream world with him.

Where Jean-Claude’s had been thick and full of fog and Richard's had been empty and dark, Edward’s was very precise. It was the only word I could think of. It wasn’t bright and sunny, it wasn’t dark and murky. It was a pleasant in between that wasn’t difficult to navigate at all.

Everything had its place and was in it. As I began to realize how large his dream world was I began to despair of finding him in it. It was… the word was on the tip of my tongue.

A memory palace.

A concept introduced worldwide in the books about Hannibal Lector: Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. The author slipped my mind, but I recalled vaguely having read bits and pieces of the books on Larry’s recommendation.

But I had most definitely read the pieces in one of them about Hannibal Lector and his memory palace. And Edward’s dream world was disturbingly similar.

I thought on it for a moment. Was the similarity because he was a psychopath like the famed doctor? Or had he read the books or similar material to lead him into building one? Or was this just the result of an analytical and very logical mind?

As much as I wanted to believe the last, I leaned toward the first. And it scared me.

Edward had never been crazy dangerous in my mind. Scary dangerous, yes. Always. But never crazy.

I moved forward hesitantly, resuming the search and trying to shake off the doubts of him that continued to hang in the back of my mind. Despite them, I still was amazed at the scenery as I passed through, always searching.

And quite suddenly I found him.

I came to him from behind. He was talking to someone—which immediately shot a hole in my theory of memory palaces and incidentally reassured me in me—but I couldn’t see whom it was. There was nothing to see, his body blocked my view completely.

“Edward?” I said softly.

He stiffened and I saw something fade into a wisp of smoke in front of him. He turned to me and he was pale, almost as pale as the white shirt he was wearing. “Anita? What are you doing there?”

His choice of words didn’t make sense to me, but I was too concerned with myself to think about them.

I smiled. “It’s good to see you, too.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I just—” and he stopped, cutting the sentence short.

“Do you remember Santa Fe? I paid you back a favor?” He nodded. “Did I at least earn a little one? Because I need your help.”

My voice was wavering and I tried very hard to keep it from doing so. But if he wouldn’t or couldn’t see me for what I was and help me… I would be trapped as a ghost forever.

A soft smile spread across his face and turned him from dangerous and kind of cute to almost radiantly handsome. I fought to keep my face from shifting to the shock that I felt. It drove home even more violently that I was in his world, in his dreams, and that I was seeing him as he truly was.

Something he was only comfortable enough, safe enough, to let loose in his dream palace. I smiled back at him unintentionally, amused and pleased at the change in words. Nothing I had seen had given me pause to think it was something he was remembering.

It was more likely that it was dreams. A mind like his could very well have him active in one dream but several underlying dreams all wrapped together with it.

“Anita,” he said, and I jerked my attention back to him. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

This time his words sent a chill down my spine. They were strangely ominous and at the same time comforting.

My smile faded as I looked into his eyes. “I need revenge. I need you to do it for me.”

The confusion that crossed his face was the only thing that gave me pause. It only then crossed my mind that _he didn’t know_. Edward, who always knew everything, did not know I was dead. For some reason I had assumed that he would.

Maybe it was arrogance on my part to think that it would be national news, but I really didn’t think it was. The FBI had me flagged, I was the most powerful animator in the world, I was the Executioner, with more legal kills than _anyone_. We won’t go into the illegal ones, but that was still impressive enough.

“Oh, Edward,” I breathed. My eyes burned and I felt a few scalding tears slip down my cheeks as I realized that I would be the one to tell him.

The confusion began to seep from his face, fear spreading in its wake. Something else I had never seen. Him, afraid for me. I think it was beginning to dawn on him, what I was, why I was there.

“It can’t be true,” he said, shaking his head. “Tell me that’s not why you’re here, Anita.”

My face crumpled and I started crying in earnest.

“I can’t.” I looked up at him, wiping the tears away. “I’m dead, Edward. Someone killed me.”

“No!” he said so forcefully that I flinched.

He began to fade and I was thrown back. Back and out. I found myself hovering above his bed and watching as he jerked upright, eyes wide and wild.

He rubbed his eyes roughly. “You’re coming unglued,” he said to himself as he did. “Going fucking nuts.”


	6. 5

He threw the sheets back and I quickly looked away as I realized he wore nothing under them. I heard him get up and then the rustle of clothing followed. I squeezed one eye open and was much relieved to find that he had pulled a pair of faded denim jeans on.

“Fucking nuts,” I heard him say one last time as he settled in front of his computer.

His fingers flew as he logged onto the internet and began searching the news pages, checking for any mention of my name. And in every one of them he found it. Screaming bold headlines, all of them declaring me dead.

The details of my death were vague. On purpose. It looked like I had stepped out in front of a moving car—suicide. Not a good thing for Animators, Inc., and I expect Bert had a hand in keeping the particular out of reports.

The details of my personal life were larger than life and in bold print. How I left the Master of the City ‘weeping over my unexpected death’ and my ‘school teacher ex-fiancé heartbroken.’ True enough. But the rest was bullshit.

There was mention of my family and how they were saddened. Jean-Claude and Richard missed me more already than they ever would, I expect. It even mentioned my work with RPIT and that all the guys on the team were taking personal days to grieve.

My heart beat painfully in my chest and I almost started crying again. I missed them. I’d never go on another hunt, never get Zerbrowski another box of silver ammo. Never have Dolph hang up the phone without saying goodbye.

I shook my head to clear the melancholy thoughts out of it and turned my attention back to Edward. He was rapt with reading. Mesmerized. And not in a good way. He had been the one I had expected to stand up to the shock of my death without breaking.

I was wrong.

I watched as he bowed his head, tears running freely. Then he buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, silent sobs wracking his body. He was the last one I had expected to cry, but maybe the friendship I felt for him was truly reciprocated.

My mind drifted back to him naming me his soul mate in front of Olaf, during the hardest and most dangerous case I had ever worked. Maybe he was right. After all, he listened to me when I spoke. Maybe that link would allow him to hear me, see me even.

So I stuck my hand out and tried to touch him.

It passed through, which I had expected. I’d hoped it wouldn’t… but it wasn’t a surprise. But I knew that somehow, I could get him to notice me. So I reached out to one of the pencils that were laying haphazard on the desk. Reached out with one finger and concentrated, willed it to move as I pushed it.

When it did roll, all the way to the edge of the desk and right off, I shouted. I’d done it, had made it move. Whether with my mind or making myself just a little more _real_ for that one moment, I had done it.

Edward didn’t move. Didn’t even notice.

So I decided to step things up. This time I concentrated and willed my fingers to push them all. Every single pen and pencil, one after the other into a clattering little pile on top of the first. He looked up as I pushed his mouse to the edge, giving it an extra bit of oomph to shove it hard enough that it disconnected from his computer and fell, wires and all.

He really noticed that.

He began looking around furtively wiping his face, cheeks, and eyes to hide any betraying evidence of emotion. When he saw nothing the wariness that had entered his eyes doubled and he cautiously began picking up the various things I had sent tumbling to the floor.

When he had picked them all up and was sitting back at the desk silently I tried one more thing. His fingers were still wrapped around the pencil that I had initially rolled off the desk, and I laid my hand over his. I think he noticed because his fingers convulsed around the wood, tightening and then loosening again.

I pushed, with all my might, making that pencil move in his hand. Then his hand. And then there were scratches across the paper in the silvery gray lead.

“I’m still here,” I wrote, tracing the roughly scrawled letters and willing him to understand what they meant.

It got easier the more I wrote, and letter by letter it came out almost legible. Until I was done, and then I pulled back, releasing him and feeling myself fade.

I didn’t go invisible, but I could see myself. And through myself. I wasn’t as strong as I had thought, I realized as the wave of fatigue washed over me.

I watched as he sat back, looking at the words. It was frustrating, trying to figure out what was going on in his head as he read it. I knew he believed in vampires and werewolves and the like. I knew he knew that ghosts existed—if only as souls barred from passing on, trapped to the mortal coil.

But I didn’t know if he would understand that I was one of them.

And I didn’t know how he would react to me being there, communicating with him.

He looked up, glancing around, and I willed myself to be solid. Or at least solid enough for him to see. Though it didn’t follow that he would see me, I realized as his eyes swept past me without any recognition. Then, as his head was turning back towards the computer, it swiveled around so he was looking at exactly the place I was standing.

He raised one yellow eyebrow and put his tongue firmly between his teeth. Then he blinked. Blankly, all of it, as if expecting to find something and not. I concentrated harder but nothing happened.

Apparently the willfulness of my personality would only conduct itself to moving things, not making me real.

He began to look away again and this time jerked his head back, eyes a little wide. Again looking away, but this time only turning part way back. I heard the gasp that I could not see, then he muttered, “Holy shit.”

He turned himself entirely to stare at where I was. Then a sad smile spread across his face. I waited.

I nearly laughed as he said, “You really are there, aren’t you?” It went… uphill from there.

I spent the rest of the day and most of the night exhausting myself by writing scribbled comments on various scraps of paper, but I finally got it across to him. He was sitting there, putting them in the order I had written, trying to understand them, while I paced next to him.

“Stop that, Anita,” he muttered as I moved behind him yet again. “It’s distracting.”

His brow furrowed as he concentrated, trying to read what I had written. It was driving me crazy and I was sure that the suspense would have killed me if I hadn’t been dead already. Finally I got annoyed and sat down, sweeping the papers away from him.

I managed to force another pencil into his hand and steered it to make two pictures. The first was of a stick figure with little dead-eye x’s being tossed in front of a car with movement lines behind it. The second was a big scribble across it and a new figure that was being killed before the car came.

He got it.

“You were already dead. Someone murdered you.” His voice was sharp as he almost yelled it. “And you want me to find them and kill them,” he went on, much quieter.

I smiled and wished I could tell him how happy I was now that he had gotten the message. As it was he was standing up, leaving the mess on the floor. I glanced at the clock and noticed that it was after midnight.

“I get it, I’ll do it. But if I’m going to I need to get some sleep,” he said.

With that he shucked his pants back off and crawled into his bed. I looked away, heat rising in my face. You know, for being dead, it’s a lot like being alive.

There were two days till Halloween.


	7. 6

I watched him sleep for a while, watched him toss and turn. He talked in his sleep. I was surprised to hear my name, but considering the shock I’d put him through it was understandable. I was lonely. For a bit I thought about taking a trip back to St. Louis and checking up on Jean-Claude and Richard.

But I knew they would be well cared for. Jean-Claude had Asher, Richard his pack. Even my friends and family didn’t need me anymore. But I did know a few that I wanted to check up on, regardless.

My pard was still not strong enough, especially Nathaniel. I didn’t care much for Elizabeth, she was able to take care of herself and seemed to hate me. Zane and Cherry had each other to break down with, though they still weren’t very strong.

I concentrated for a moment and then I was there. It was later in the morning there than in New Mexico and they were all up and about. Nathaniel was in the kitchen washing dishes, Vivian was drying them. He looked better than he had on my previous visit, she only looked sad. I moved to wander through the house, searching for the rest of the Pard.

Zane and Cherry were asleep in my bed, curled into each other and burying their faces in the pillows. I knew they were catching my scent and resisted the urge to reach out and touch their brows. There was nothing I could do to erase the lines that rested there, and plenty I could do to cause more.

I didn’t know if they could sense me and had no desire to wake them.

Gregory and Stephen were together; I watched them from a window where they stood in the backyard. They were looking at the house, and I thought for a moment maybe they would see the ghost of me staring back. But their eyes slipped past me and they continued in their conversation.

I was dead to them. There was nothing they could do now but turn their heads toward living, and rightfully so.

It was Jason and Elizabeth that made me pause and then stop completely. He was holding her by her arm and she was bleeding from her mouth. For a moment I thought that Jason had been beating her for some reason, maybe they had been dating without my knowing.

But then she opened her mouth.

“There’s no proof, _wolf_ ,” she spat. “I have an alibi and you can’t prove I’m lying just because you’re a lycanthrope.”

Jason glared and jerked her towards him. “You admitted it to me. The Pack will believe me, so will the Pard. They are _not_ your creatures. They never were, and as long as they can remember Anita, they never will be.”

He threw her back against the wall. It splintered behind her, a beam cracking under the stress. She laughed and rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand, licking the blood from it. “Your pack will never believe that I’m not telling the truth. They’ll say you believe what you say and that’s why your scent doesn’t change.”

He buried a fist in the wall by her head. She laughed again.

“Anita was the only one to ever lie with her scent.” She leaned closer. “Do you know how she did it? I do.”

She kissed him then, full on the lips leaving blood streaked from his mouth. Unconsciously he flicked his tongue out, very pink against the dark red, and caught it up on the tip. “Yes, I know how she did it,” he said quietly. “She never felt guilt over it. She always did what had to be done. She always did right.”

One of Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose in a neat arch. “You’re smarter than you look,” was all she said for a moment. Then she asked, “Do you know how I will get away with it?”

He stood silent.

“Because I think she needed to die. I have no guilt. She was a _human_ and she was taking over the lycanthrope community.” Her voice was heated and her eyes sparked. “She needed to die.”

I realized then that Jason wasn’t just grasping for straws, that he had indeed found my killer. I also knew that he would never convince Richard or Jean-Claude that she was succeeding in lying to them, and that he wasn’t alpha enough to go against them and kill her after he tried to prove it.

He wasn’t a killer, not like me, not like Edward. He wouldn’t think of killing her where she stood, right now. No, he thought of getting justice for me. But it was not meant to be, and they faded away as I snapped back to New Mexico, and Edward.

Edward, who would kill her just because I wanted it. Who would revenge my murder and know she was my killer on the power of my word alone.

Edward, my most trusted friend.

Edward, who was still asleep.

I smiled as I watched him, he looked so peaceful. So tired and sad. There were shadows under his eyes that had only appeared after he realized I was there. It made my heart hurt to know that he grieved for me. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted anyone grieving at all.

It was easier being dead than alive, especially knowing that soon I would be able to move on. I wanted that desperately. I lay down on the bed next to him, stretching out and wondering if I could at least pretend to sleep while waiting for him to wake up.

Instead, I found myself pulled into him, wandering his dream world again. Only this time it was not so bright and organized. It had become a darkened place, full of painful scenery and depressing overtones.

I found him in a room, hidden by shadow and laid out flat on his back. I crossed the threshold and felt a tingle across my skin, like thousands of fingers running down my body. I glanced down to see that my clothes had changed and I was no longer wearing the jeans and t-shirt I had worn since my death, barring Jean-Claude’s dream.

Now I was wearing black, as usual, but not my usual comfy clothes. A black shirt of some soft and smooth material that clung to my curves and ended slightly above my navel showing a slender strip of pale white skin. Black pants of a similar material that clung to me and then flared to cover the black boots. I reached back and felt my hair, longish though shorter than I had let it grown, curled and free.

I didn’t need a brain to figure out that I had stumbled into an active dream state of his and somehow become part of it. I think I would have tried to get out of it, but he sat up then and looked at me.

“Anita,” he said. Just my name, but it held tones that I hadn’t heard before, not when he said my name nor anyone else’s.

He reached for me and I went willing into his arms, his mouth brushing my lips and cheek before he buried his face in the crook of my neck. Now I understood, as I felt the hot tears on soak through the shirt and onto my skin, what he had meant last night in the dream I had burst into.

Not ‘here,’ but ‘there.’ He had asked why was I there when I should have been here. And I knew then that the figure I hadn’t seen had been myself. A dream version, Edward’s version. Or more likely, how I truly was instead of what he wanted.

He never took anything by halves and had always accepted me for what I was.

I pulled back, frightened and confused. “Elizabeth,” I said, her name tumbling from my lips.

He looked at me and I saw the blood drain from his face. I chose to ignore it, to pretend that I didn’t know what I now knew, and slid my hands down his arms. “I know who killed me, Edward. I saw when I went back home.”

I watched as it dawned on him, as he took the name I had said startled by what I had learned, the prize I was giving him. And then I felt him jerk awake from the dream, Elizabeth’s name on his lips and a peculiar set to his jaw. He headed straight for his desk and spent the next hours on the phone and internet, tracking down information and some type of proof that would hold up under scrutiny.

I expect he was going to use it to keep the preternatural community off of his back. Jean-Claude and Richard would keep him safe if anyone wanted him dead after avenging me. Yes, there were people who wanted me dead besides Elizabeth.

Some time after the sun reached its peak he hung the phone up and turned the computer off. I watched without moving while he packed two bags and changed into comfortable clothes for travel.

Then he was on his way to the airport, and St. Louis, to take care of her.


	8. 7

I didn’t join him on the flight, instead choosing to wait for him in the hotel. It wasn’t very hard to figure out how to find his room. I had heard him arrange for the plane ticket and the hotel reservation, as well as a car rental. I had the name, even though I didn’t get to read the details.

I waited until the hotel lobby was busy with evening check-ins and prayed that luck was with me. It was; a sensitive showed up shortly after I began watching for her. She was just pulling her reservation information out of her overnight bag when I brushed by her.

She shivered, which covered the startled look on her face when I whispered, “Forrester,” in her ear. She repeated it out of surprise, shock, and the desk clerk immediately looked the name up and told her where I needed to go.

I don’t know how she explained that she wasn’t him; I didn’t hang around long enough to find out. Instead I made my way to the elevators and then floated into one, careless of whom I brushed.

I was still thinking of how Edward had wrapped his arms around me and let down his walls. Of course, he had thought I was the Anita in his dreams. And I simply walked through the door of his room. Or rather, suite. Trust Edward to never do anything by halves.

Then, I waited. Oh, I thought a lot while I waited, true, but none of it coherent. It was like I was walking around in a slight daze, my thoughts weren’t quite making sense. Or maybe that was only compared to the way I usually thought.

Thinking of Edward as a man instead of as a friend was not quite normal.

But it was… a pleasant thought. One I hadn’t actually been given to, though maybe in the most secret parts of my mind it had sprung up unbidden. It just wasn’t me. Except I was dead, and no longer bound by the rules of mortality.

And so it was when the click of the lock roused me from my jumbled thinking and roused me back to coherence. He stepped into the dark, throwing a shadow against the bright rectangle of the open door. I stayed back and away from the light. I didn’t want him to see me.

Because he could. He was seeing me out of the corners of his eyes. Somehow. Maybe he had a bit of psychic ability, or maybe it really was a matter of soul mates. Maybe he really was mine.

So I stayed hidden and watched as he dropped one bag at the foot of the bed and the other he shoved unopened into the built-in wall safe. It was a very good hotel. He closed it, spun the dial, then added some type of odd lock to the dial.

I smiled. Trust Edward to lock a safe twice.

Then he toed his shoes off, pulled his shirt over his head, and crawled into the bed and under the covers, too tired for more than that. I smiled. So much the better for me.

It wasn’t hard to insinuate myself into his dreams, I’d already walked there twice and it became easier with each attempt. I still had to search for him. He was still in that shadowed room waiting for an Anita that wasn’t coming.

Instead I went, back through the door way and into the sleek black clothes he saw me in. Once he saw me there was no chance of his dream Anita coming. His mind would quit dreaming her once it was given me and I went willingly.

This time he reached for me, hands tight on my waist and eyes still sad, but watching me carefully. I smiled and leaned into him, and he seemed to relax. He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me greedily. It was not, I think, a time for words or tenderness.

Instead it was an affirmation of life. His future, my past. It was something he needed and I wanted, and I gave myself over to him, sighing and crying out as he undressed me slowly and carefully, hands and fingers skimming lightly over my skin.

I returned his caresses, drawing his shirt over his head and touching him, exploring the skin I had never seen and smoothing my fingers over the scars he bore.

My mouth followed them leaving a wet trail, and I heard his sharp intake of breath as I undid the button on his jeans and pushed them down, taking him into my mouth.

It was not delicately done, as most men would have it. It was primal and alive and uncivilized. Then it was my turn, his mouth moving over me and making my back arch, my arms and legs writhe. Making me want. Need.

Desire so intense pounded through me that I drew him up to me, kissing him, silently begging him to enter me. Then there was nothing but the rhythm of his body against mine.


	9. 8

It was Halloween, with an hour till dusk. Edward was still working the phone trying to track Elizabeth down so that he could end this nightmare once and for all. I was basking in the fading sun out on the balcony.

He knew I was there, I had revealed myself that morning when he had woken. For some reason he wasn’t exactly treating me different anymore, no ‘she’s dead’ designation. He expected me to pull my own weight when I could.

It was comforting in its own way. I had already proved I could still handle myself by bringing him Elizabeth’s name. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t supply her location.

By the time he had her tracked down darkness was falling over the city. She would be at Danse Macabre tonight, after moon rise. It was a new moon; there was no fear of her growing fur. But he was still packing for bear.

Or maybe it was more accurate to say wereleopard.

He went, not paying me any attention as I trailed behind him. I kept myself to the corners of his vision where I was most solid appearing to him and refrained from answering on the occasions he made a comment directed towards me.

He didn’t expect an answer. I wasn’t inclined to give one.

The club was decked out spectacularly. Most people consider black and orange the only colors to decorate with when they think of the holiday. Jean-Claude apparently didn’t. Or maybe it was designers, considering that he was in full mourning.

I had heard that he wouldn’t even be attending the party. He and Richard were to be sitting vigil for me at the Circus. I expect there would be drunken reminiscing.

There was black, it was to be expected. The clubs normal colors were dominated by the color. But in addition there was a full array of autumnal colors, like a kaleidoscope of leaves and darkness.

Blood reds, burnt oranges, misty yellows, and every color in between. All pulled together by the bronze and gold and black that emphasized the season. It wasn’t so much Halloween decorations, but a celebration of the season.

Or perhaps they had opted to take down the ghost and zombie paraphernalia to de-emphasize on my death.

Edward immediately headed for the booths on the wall adjacent to the entrance, sliding in and looking out to keep watch for her. He had his Beretta out under the table, cradled in his hands, safety off. He was ready in case all hell broke loose.

I took up a post behind him, where he never looked back at me. I don’t know what he would have expected to see, but I know he wouldn’t have found it. I had been counting the days down, waiting for this night so that I could have my revenge.

And I was going to have it.

There was a slight commotion at the door and I looked up, eyes blazing in anger. Elizabeth was there, _my_ pard in tow. They looked tired and subdued and I saw the faint tell-tale marks of violence on them. It infuriated me.

She could kill me because I wasn’t a lycanthrope. But it was okay for her, a lycanthrope, a wereleopard, a member of that pard, to harm them. To abuse them.

To force them into submission because she wasn’t dominant enough to command them on her own.

Edward stood in a fluid motion and began threading his way through the crowd between him and them, pushing people to the side and not caring who it was. He had sense enough to keep the gun down and out of sight, but I watched knowing that most of the people he touched were shifters and could smell it.

Elizabeth was across the threshold now, getting ready to take to the crowded dance floor and lose herself there. Edward shouted, gun raised and perfectly visible in the dimmed light.

“Stop her!”

That was when everyone who was human noticed the gun and saw it already aimed. There were screams and shouts and a few people who attempted to reach him. I assume it was to knock the gun out of his hands, subdue him, something like that.

No one ever made it; the rush of people away from him was too strong.

The vampires at the door moved to grab her and she struck out at them. Edward fired a single shot, missing her and splintering wood. People dove away leaving a clear space between where I stood and where she crouched.

I stepped forward.

Edward squeezed off two more rounds, neither hitting her but both clipping the tile in front of her. Chips of it were sent flying towards her drawing blood. It streamed down her face from a half dozen minor cuts.

Her tongue flicked out, lapping the blood where it flowed. A smile spread across her face, it was distinctly un-pretty and mostly feral. Her eyes flickered at him for a moment, a glowing gold-green color that faded when she looked past him.

The cat color fled them immediately as her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open and she rose from her crouch unthinking. Her whole body trembled as she watched me.

“You—you’re dead. I killed you!” she gasped.

Her fear radiated off of her in waves and it was catching. As the crowd slowly turned to look at me I felt the fear flowing towards me like a tidal wave. Strong and very, very satisfying.

Oh yes. Be afraid, Elizabeth. Be very afraid.

The silence was deafening and only one sound broke it as I stood there. A very clear clicking as a safety was pushed back on, a Edward’s voice muttering, “What the hell?!”


	10. 9

I smiled. Even as it stretched across my face I could tell that it wasn’t pleasant. It Elizabeth’s had been feral, mine was down right evil.

Elizabeth began to recover herself and moved into an aggressive posture as I walked towards her. Her trembling hadn’t stopped, but now the shaking was masked by anger and not emphasized by fear. Her jaw was clenched and she was struggling to keep from taking a step backwards.

I glanced at Edward as I passed him. His face was pale and his eyes wide. He looked… afraid. But of what I couldn’t tell. Maybe he was afraid of me. Maybe he was afraid of losing me again.

I didn’t have the heart nor the time to stop and tell him what was going on.

In the few moments I had taken my eyes off of Elizabeth to look at Edward, she had lunged at me. Her fingers were curled into claws and her nails had lengthened and curved.

I realized that she was beginning to shift, able to control it just enough to slow it down drastically. She wasn’t alpha, only dominant, and fear lent its own power.

The claws raked across my forearm as I shoved Edward aside. She had been aiming for him, not me. Spiteful bitch, I thought as I twisted an arm to backhand her.

There were other pluses to being dead, besides not having to open doors. The deep furrows weren’t causing any pain; they would have if I’d been alive. I’d born similar injuries often enough to know that.

Nor was I limited to human restrictions.

The blow I dealt her flung her back at least ten feet. She lay there for a moment before climbing back to her knees, then feet. Blood showed bright red at her mouth the left side of her face was darkening with the bruise she would have. Her eye was swiftly disappearing behind swollen flesh.

It gave me an advantage. Even her lycanthrope healing could only work so fast, and I didn’t intend on giving her the few minutes it would take for the wounds to heal. I wanted this done quickly; I wanted her body at my feet.

I stalked over to her, feeling the threatening posture my body gave. She lashed out, landing a sturdy series of blows about my head and shoulders. My arms should have stung with the strength of the blows I had managed to ward off, but they didn’t.

When she paused for a moment, a startled look crossing her face, I thrust my right fist out. It connected solidly with her chin and her head snapped back. As it came forward again she shock on her face was almost comical.

I grabbed her by the chin and forced her eyes level with mine. They were wide and frightened and a dark place deep inside me crowed happily that at least I had her fear before I killed her.

“You’ve been a very, very naughty leopard, Elizabeth,” I snarled into her face. She tried to squirm away, but I held her tight.

She whimpered. “I—I’m sorry,” she breathed, soft and almost inaudible.

I smiled and stroked her hair with my free hand. “Yes, I know you are. We all are when faced with death.”

I lifted my eyes to look past her. I could see my pard and Edward clearly. Edward’s face told me nothing; it had dropped back into the blank mask that hid his thoughts from the world. But the leopard’s faces told me everything.

_Kill her_ , they said. The expressions were unmistakable, and I nodded ever so slightly to them. None of them said anything, but Nathaniel dropped to his knees, head bowed. His relief at what I was going to do was so obvious that it only made me want her dead more.

I looked back to Edward, then let my eyes wander across the crowd as Elizabeth hung from my hand, unmoving but for the tremors that coursed through her body. No one spoke, no one stepped forward to say, ‘stop.’

No one would save her.

The tremors grew more violent as she realized that no one would, or could, save her. I looked back into her eyes and this time there was nothing but fear. Nothing but the uncontrollable terror that comes of being confronted with a living nightmare.

It was beautiful to me.

I leaned close and slid my cheek along hers until my mouth was next to her ear. “I want you to know the despair of the damned, Elizabeth. It’s time that you answered for your crimes.”

I gave her head one last pat before letting her stand on her own. I think that, for a moment, she thought I would let her go. That I would have pity on her and let her live, if only because I had let her get away with so much before.

What she never understood is that I did it because I felt guilt. Guilt for killing Gabriel, guilt for taking him from her. And that guilt spurred me towards gentleness.

Now, I only felt hate.

Before she could move my hands reached out and grabbed hold of her, clamping down on either side of her head. With one quick, harsh twist, it was over.

Her neck snapped, and I dropped her to the floor.

Her head lolled to one side, eyes wide and open, surprised at their death. I nudged her body with my foot once, twice, then realized that it wasn’t going to magically fix itself.

She really was dead. I was avenged.

I looked down at my body, expecting to watch it fade away as I moved on, but instead I was greeted by a solid form. Where there would have been bruises from the blows I had taken, there was nothing but smooth skin.

Where there should have been deep, blood filled cuts, there were only bloodless furrows from the slash she had given me.

I looked up and around and, realizing that I was still there, took a shuddering step backwards. I was still there, still dead, still a ghost. I felt my hands start to tremble and then my eyes met his. Edward was watching me, his face still empty.

He moved to take a step towards me.

I turned and ran.


	11. 10

The moon had almost reached its peak when he found me. I had been standing over my own grave for hours and I knew it was almost midnight. The magic that made me real would soon be gone, if I remembered my folklore correctly.

I was just staring at the ground. The dirt was still fresh in comparison to the other graves around my plot, and the headstone had only been there long enough to acquire a slight sheen of dew.

Underneath them, the stone and dirt, was a small vault. Inside it would be the urn that held my ashes. My body. What was left of me.

And I was still… there.

I was crying, had been, I don’t know for how long. His hand touched my back and I almost cried out at the warmth. I wanted to be warm, I wanted to be alive.

“What magic is this?” he asked softly. “How are you alive?”

I smiled bitterly through my tears. “I’m not alive.” I thrust my scored arm at him, shoving it under his nose to make sure he saw it.

The cut was jagged and deep. I could see straight down to bone, through layers of muscle and tissue, and yet there was no blood.

“Do living things have no blood?” I snorted at the suggestion. “I’m not alive,” I repeated.

“Then what are you?”

His eyes were pale and open in the moonlight, and there were no masks now. There was the remnant of hope, and fear. Sadness, grief. Pain.

“Don’t you know that all spirits can walk on _All Hallows Eve_?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

I smiled, unsurprised. “It’s an old folktale. For one night, from dark to midnight, the dead can walk as the living.” I shrugged. “Once I ever heard it was from dusk till dawn, but I researched it. It was an extra credit project in college.”

He looked at me, his hand still touching me lightly. I wanted to lean into it, into him, but didn’t dare. He didn’t know it was me in his dream the night before and I didn’t want him to. It would only be more painful for him in the end.

“I didn’t know that,” was all he said.

Wow. Something Edward didn’t know about me. I had half expected him to have pulled my grade school transcripts so that he could have dirt on me. Guess I was wrong.

We stood there in the dark, me watching my grave, him watching me, for a little while longer. Then I started to feel something new. A slight pressure against my skin, and I sighed.

“How much longer do you have?” Edward asked me quietly.

I held my hand up between us. It was growing translucent, and my breath caught in my throat. “Not very much longer,” I said, and it came out on a whisper.

“Not much at all,” he breathed back as he looked at me. I could feel myself fading away, and I wondered if that had been all that held me from moving on. If being real, just for that little time, had prevented it.

We would find out soon, I thought.

I looked up into his eyes and was surprised to see tears shining in them. I reached a hand up to brush them away, and he caught it.

He said my name softly, and I looked down. His hands cupped my face and tilted it back up, to look at his, and he smiled. I tried to smile back, and choked on it. I couldn’t put on a happy face.

“Anita,” he said again. I looked at him.

“I love you.”


	12. 11

He kissed me then, lips against mine, tongue sliding easily into my mouth. I let him, kissing him back as fervently as he kissed me. His arms were around me, hands clutching at my back, trying to pull me closer. Trying to be one with me, it felt like.

“This is real,” he said as he kissed me. “This is real, not a dream. I love you, always have. Always.” He kissed me again and I threw my arms around me him, hanging on to him for life, not wanting to let go, not wanting to say good-bye.

He pulled back, his eyes dark in the moonlight. “I’ve always loved you, Anita,” he said again, his hands holding to me as I continued to fade.

Then I began to feel scared. I hadn’t felt this when I was confronted with Jean-Claude or Richard. Maybe because I had spent time with them, had the chance to love them the way I wanted. I’d had years with them both.

But I’d only just found Edward.

I laughed, and it sounded hysterical. I’d known him longer than I’d known either of them. I’d met him before I’d even known Jean-Claude or Richard existed, but I was only now coming to realize how much he meant to me.

I’d taken him for granted all those years, not even wanting to admit to myself what he was to me ever. Even when confronted with his impending marriage to someone so wrong for him.

No, I had made it all about business, hiding it from myself.

And now I would never have anything but a dream to hold on to.

“Edward,” I whispered, frightened. “I don’t want to die.”

He pulled me closer for a moment. I could hear the tears in his voice when he said, “But you’re already dead, Anita.”

I stifled the sob that rose and pulled back, so that I could look into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I am, truly.”

He looked at me, confused. “For what? Dying? You were murdered, and now the world knows.”

I shook my head, trying to rush. I was fading faster than before, and I didn’t know if I was moving on pieces at a time, or if I was just reverting to ghost before I did. But I knew I had to tell him, before it really was too late.

“I’m sorry I wasted all those years.”

Confusion swept his face, then surprise. Then sorrow. I wept to see it, and the regret was overwhelming.

He lifted my chin tenderly. “Even if all we had was that one night, we loved a life times worth then,” he whispered. “There shouldn’t be regrets between us.”

I tried to smile and succeeded half way. “No regrets. I’ll never regret it. I love you, Edward.”

He smiled and kissed me one more time before I slipped away, back into the ghost world. I looked at my hands and reached out, trying to touch him. They went through him, and I cried out. And then he held a hand out to mine, letting it drift into it.

I looked up and realized he could still see me.

“Anita,” he said. “I can see you.”

“I don’t know why,” I whispered, afraid. “You didn’t die, did you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

I saw it in his eyes seconds before the knife appeared. A thin crimson line sprang up where the blade crossed his flesh, and the sudden fear faded slightly. He hadn’t been able to see or hear me before. I didn’t know what was going on.

But then it didn’t matter.

I began to fade in earnest.

I looked at him and bit back the tears as he realized what was happening. His eyes were shiny and he reached out to me, even though he knew we couldn’t’ touch.

And right before I disappeared, I managed to whisper, “I love you.”


	13. Epilogue

I watched as he came. Body stiffened and stooped, blond hair gone silver. He was older than I had ever imagined he would become. I’m sure he had never pictured it himself.

He paused to look around, then, when no one was in evidence, pulled a slightly crumpled bunch of flowers from under his jacket. He kept walking, stopping only when he reached my grave. It was a small, still neat plot at the edge of the cemetery.

He knelt and closed his eyes. What he said I don’t know. I didn’t dare go close enough to hear him. Too many times over the years I strayed closer than I should and he nearly saw me. And that I wouldn’t have for anything.

The flowers were placed carefully into the bronze bud vase bolted to my headstone, the dried and dead remains of his offering last year tucked carefully into his pocket. He kissed his fingers and pressed them to my name, the sorrow in his eyes never dimming.

He waited.

Eventually as dawn neared he rose and moved to leave. “I still miss you,” he said softly into the fading night. I watched and waited until he was safely in his car and driving away before answering.

“I miss you, too,” I whispered.

But sorrow didn’t taint my words. He was my unfinished business, but time passes. It would be finished soon.


End file.
